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Turkey's Judges Vote

The Wall Street Journal Europe

Updated April 1, 2008 12:01 a.m. ET

What a debacle. Turkey's highest court yesterday agreed to hear a case to ban the President, Prime Minister and the country's ruling party on grounds that they're threatening the constitutionally-mandated secular basis of the state. Once again, the Muslim world's bellwether democracy faces months of political uncertainty.

The decision is disappointing but unsurprising. The courts, along with the army and bureaucracy, make up Turkey's secular establishment. The secularists can't abide the success of the Justice and...